Alone
by TheNewJeniferChurch
Summary: Abandoned by the Dursleys, Harry raises himself. Then things really get interesting! Rated T because I'm paranoid.
1. Abandoned

**ALONE**

 **Chapter 1: Abandoned**

Harry stared at the empty slot in the car park, the driving rain a punishing sting against his skin that he didn't really feel, numbed as he was by the shock. Perhaps it shouldn't have been a shock; he knew the Dursleys hated him and always had. But to actually abandon him, to give him no way to return? No, he hadn't expected that. After all, who abandons a seven-year-old child in a foreign country at a market?

The Dursleys had been forced to take him with them in the first place. Uncle Vernon had been required to go to Indianapolis for a business conference. The family took the opportunity for a vacation, but they couldn't leave him behind in Surrey over the summer, so he came with them. And now he was standing in a car park in front of a market called Walmart with the clothes on his back and Dudley's wallet, which contained the $300 US they had given their son for spending money.

Harry had been told stories for years of how terrible orphanages were. The Dursleys had threatened for years to leave him in one, used that threat to make him do the chores. Of all those chores, Harry liked the gardening best. He was quite good at it, and Aunt Petunia never complained of how her flowers were growing, even when she complained about everything else. Harry didn't want to go to an orphanage. But he obviously couldn't go back home, either.

Harry shook himself and went back inside the store, to the place where they parked the trollies. He wrung as much water out of his clothes as he could, then walked back into the store. He felt like there were a hundred eyes on him as he wandered the store, looking for ideas. He didn't want to spend the money on silly things. Sure, $300 was a lot of money to a seven-year-old boy, but he had to figure out how to actually make it on that kind of money, and for who knew how long!

When he got to the sporting section, the seed of an idea planted itself in his mind. He could find a place to camp out, eat what nature could provide him! He remembered the tomatoes Aunt Petunia'd had him grow last year with fondness. It was spring. Maybe he could get some seeds, too? There was a book right here, titled "Survival Indiana" He looked through the book and started getting what he'd need. He grabbed a small tent, camping dishes, a knife and a hatchet, a compass, a canteen, a first-aid kit, a fishing pole with hooks and lures, a compass, matches, a camping spade, a sleeping bag and a bag of beef jerky. He thought about a chair, but decided against it. He picked up a length of rope in the hardware section, and a good torch, then went through the clothing and picked up a hat and one new outfit and a pair of leather boots. All of them were adult sizes, but they were hard-wearing and would last him a long time. He picked up a towel and some flannels that were on sale in the housewares department. Then he went to the gardening section and picked up twelve different kinds of vegetable seeds, all in little packets. Adding up the cost, he grabbed a bar of unscented soap, a bag of potatoes, a box of six frozen sandwiches and a bag of mixed whole fruits.

On the way to the registers, Harry spotted a plain black diary with an attached pen. He hesitated, but grabbed it anyway. If he had enough money, he'd buy it.

The woman at the register gave him a funny look, but she didn't try to stop him. He walked out to the car park, now that it had stopped raining, and began to repack everything in such a way as to be easier to carry. He wrapped the tent and his clothes in the sleeping bag and rolled it up, then used the tent bag to carry everything else, as it was shaped like a back pack. The last thing he did was attach the sleeping bag to the top of the pack with his new belt. Then he walked out to the edge of the road.

Harry knew that he was on the western edge of a large American city, and he wanted nothing to do with that, so he walked out to the big road which was called East Main Street and started walking westward.

Walking with a pack is harder than it looks, but Harry had strength despite his very slender frame. Munching on an apple from the bag of fruit he'd bought, he didn't look as out of place as he might, so he wasn't stopped by the adults he saw. He was quite lucky in one respect, that it was the weekend and there would be no one trying to find out why he wasn't in school. He'd have to find a place to hide during the week, though.

Harry looked at a map on the wall in a convenience store as he passed by, trying to decide where to go, and decided simply to continue along the roads, at least for now. He had a vague feeling of wanting to go north and west, so he decided to go to the little town of Belleville, where there was a major junction that would send him northward from there.

As he walked, Harry passed by many different kinds of shops, houses, even a school. Then the road left the town he was in and passed into farmland, with young crops of corn and beans just getting started in their growth. He didn't think too much as he walked, just watching the road as he passed it by and making sure no one hit him with their car. He did idly notice that cars were driving on the opposite side of the road to what he was used to, but that wasn't a big issue, so it was soon shoved to the back of his mind. He saw a rabbit at one point, and saw a hawk dive on it, taking it away to be eaten.

When Harry reached Belleville, he watched carefully for the road which would take him northward. He wasn't sure why he wanted to travel north, but he was following his instincts, feelings he had always paid attention to and which had kept him from being thrashed by Dudley more than once.

He added water to his canteen from a convenience store's bathroom, as well as using the loo, and made his way to a spot of grass where he could eat one of his six sandwiches. He'd been walking long enough, they weren't frozen any more, so it was easy to eat it. He hoped he found a place to camp fairly soon, or he'd be in trouble. A fire to cook his potatoes would draw attention.

He continued northward, now, knowing he was because of his compass, until the sun started to go down. He had just passed a town called Danville, and all of their street lights were on, now. He couldn't walk in the dark, or he risked tripping and injuring himself, so he got off the road, found a spot that wasn't in a ditch in case it rained over night, and started putting up his tent. It wasn't too hard, having instructions included along with the hammer and pins, so before long he was able to stop for the night.

Harry didn't dare start a fire until he was somewhere secluded, and he didn't count a farmer's field as such. Still, the sleeping bag was warmer than his old blanket back in Surrey, and the ground, having been recently plowed, was far softer than his manky old mattress. Indiana was also much further south than Surrey, making it a bit warmer, anyway. He ate another of his sandwiches and had an orange for desert. Then, exhausted, Harry went to laid down to sleep, setting the alarm on his watch for six o'clock local time. The last thought he had before he drifted off was to wonder in a resigned manner what he had ever done to the Dursleys.

* * *

Harry woke when the alarm went off, and for a moment he didn't know where he was. There wasn't any light yet. Then he heard a car drive past on the nearby road, the memory of yesterday came rushing back to him. He took a deep breath and sighed. He ate an orange from his pack for breakfast, washing his hands with a little of the water from his canteen, then set about packing up his camp. The sky promised rain very soon, so he waited to pack the tent.

As the sky let loose, Harry held out one of the plastic bags from the market and let the rain fill it as much as it could. His arms didn't last for long, but he got enough water to refill his canteen completely. Then he hurried to shake the water off of his tent so he could pack it, got everything put back together, and got back on the road.

His feet held up better to the pounding today than they had yesterday, and Harry walked further, but he still had his tent up by sunset, this time on the outskirts of a town called Lebanon. He'd eaten another two sandwiches, but was starting to worry because there were only two left. If he didn't find a place to stop and cook soon, he'd start to go hungry. He couldn't eat raw potatoes and beef jerky.

The next day, though brought Harry a break. He'd changed roads, for one that lead a little further west, and it crossed a stream called Prairie Creek. This was what his instincts had been looking for, and he left the roads, beginning to follow the stream. It took more time to follow the uneven ground. He didn't make as much headway as he had the previous two days. But he did find something he'd been needing all along, and that was fish.

He spent three hours on the fourth day with a baited hook in the creek, and was rewarded with three silver-finned bodies. He finally risked a small fire, cooking the fish and one of the potatoes and washing his clothes. It was a very new experience, catching his own dinner, but he did know how to handle fish since it was one of Aunt Petunia's favorite dishes and she didn't like to clean what she brought home from the fishmonger. He spent the rest of that day reading his survival book. He thought about the black diary, but he wasn't ready yet to do anything with it. His thoughts hadn't stopped swirling around in his head long enough to put any of them on paper yet.

Harry's fifth day brought him to the place where Prairie Creek met and joined with Sugar Creek, just north of a town called Thorntown. He left the creek and went into town with the last ten dollars of Dudley's spending money and bought a five-pound bag of self-rising flour, six cans of evaporated milk, and a can opener. As a final farewell to civilization, having decided never to return if at all possible, he bought a fizzy drink as well, tossing the empty can in the trash of the building he'd bought it in.

After a week and a half, Harry's instincts let him stop. He was now in a place called Turkey Run, and it was perfect for his needs. He had fish in the creek, rabbits, squirrels and doves galore, as well as wild turkey. Many of the surrounding trees bore nuts, and he'd be able to hit any of the nearby farms for corn and soybeans if he needed them and blame it on the deer that were thick in the woods. Of course, he'd also have to protect anything he planted from said beasties, but it was a far better location than any of the others he had come through since Walmart.

He set up his camp, then hid it as best as he knew how with his burgeoning bushcraft skills. When he had everything set up, he stood back and admired his work, then he said to himself, "Welcome home, Harry."

* * *

Harry couldn't have known what saying that would set off, or he probably wouldn't have. But when he called something home that wasn't the Dursleys' house, it broke the powerful enchantments that had been lain on it through the strength of his blood relation to Petunia and Dudley. The wards fell and all of the tracking magic that Albus Dumbledore had attached to Harry when he was an infant collapsed.

When he arrived to find out what happened, he was quite surprised to learn that the Boy Who Lived had been missing for over a week. He was far less than thrilled to discover the reason why, which he did by lifting the thoughts out of Petunia's fool head. "When the followers of the man who killed your sister come for you, do please remember that the one thing that would have prevented it was allowing her son to call your home his own."

The next six and a half years would be hard on the wizarding world. They had lost an icon, and the darkness had lost an enemy. The Dursleys lost their lives due to the lack of protections on their home, and Dudley was sent to live with his Aunt Marge, his father's sister. When Quirinus Quirrell let a troll into the Hobwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1991, the troll killed a young girl who'd been crying in the bathroom. She was the first of many, as the troll had been a distraction for Quirrell to get to the Philosopher's Stone that was being hidden in the castle. He achieved his end later in the year, and Voldemort was brought back to life. The Minister of Magic refused to believe that the monster had returned, and while the madman planned and gathered what he needed to make his return more glorious, the Ministry undercut the very people who would lead the fight against him.

He had one of his minions sneak one of his Horcruxes into Hogwarts with a little boy to deliver it to the monster in the Chamber of Secrets, which proved to be a twenty-meter basilisk. It ate the boy of course, and under his direction Slytherin's Monster began running through the school, its Headmaster its target. He defeated the snake by using Fiend Fyre, but the damage to the Weasley family had already been done. His next move was to break open Azkaban prison and retrieve his most faithful followers. One other escaped, the wrongfully imprisoned Sirius Black, and he took the opportunity to stick a quill in Belatrix Lestrange's eye. His freedom lasted only so long as it took Voldemort to kill him, and Belatrix became even more insane than she had already been. She was now his loyal attack dog, and the man who had actually done the crimes for which Black had been accused had been eaten while in his Animagus form by what three different witnesses called a Grim.

Dumbledore had decided, at the last, to sponsor a revival of the Triwizard Tournament, ostensibly to bring together the wizards of Europe in cooperation and in friendship, in the hope of bringing in allies to aid against Voldemort and his forces, as well as to give everyone a break from the insanity. But he had an ulterior motive. If there was one thing that would rally the world and lift people's spirits, it would be the sudden reappearance of Harry Potter. He couldn't use the cup to bring him in except in a legitimate tournament, or he'd have done so long ago, but he was also sure that, whatever the magic was that was hiding the boy from all and sundry, it wouldn't be able to stand against the Goblet of Fire. With a prayer to the Unknown God that this would work, Dumbledore took an old and yellowed slip of paper, an assignment Harry had done when he was still in primary school which had both the name of the school and his name written in his hand of his own free will, and put it into the Goblet.

* * *

 _Well, I hope you've all enjoyed this first chapter. It's not my usual fair, not being a crossover. Honestly, I wrote this in a day, and it's not been betaed, so go a little easy on me. If you spot any copy errors, please let me know. Also, no Ron, Hermione or Sirius here, and everyone's going to be a little different because of ol' Snake Face being around and in the open. And of course, Harry will be very, very different himself._

 _Reviews make the world go 'round!_


	2. Survival

**Chapter 2: Survival**

Over the next six years, Harry learned, by trial and error, how to survive in the natural environment of the park's nature preserve. The survival book he'd bought saved his life countless times, showing him all the hows of living in the wild, and even of making what he needed to do so. He hunted with a sling, and he soon got very accurate with it, hitting squirrels and rabbits from as far as twenty meters on more than one occasion. He even built a little house by digging a hole into the side of a hill, hiding the entrance with branches that he tied together and covering these in mud, leaves, twigs and small stones. It was heavy to move, but it was warm inside even during the winter, so long as he remembered not to sleep through a snow storm. He had to worry about suffocating if he did that, because he wouldn't be awake to dig the snow away from the entrance and there would be no way for air to get in.

There were nut trees, rabbits, squirrels and fish, turkeys and doves to steal eggs from and neighboring farms to steal corn and soybeans from, as well as the vegetable seeds and the potatoes he'd brought with him to start growing his own food. The first couple of months, he was heavily dependent on the local proteins because none of the vegetable sources were ready to eat yet, but then the field corn reached the milk stage and he was able to eat both them and beans, and the spinach and cabbage he planted came up, providing him with safe greens to eat.

The survival book showed him how to make salt from hickory wood, and that proved to be a life saver for him. If he hadn't had salt, he'd have been in very bad condition before very long as his electrolytes became unbalanced. But he was lucky enough in his hunting, foraging and gardening that he didn't have any nutritional problems that first year. He was able to store enough food over the winter that he ate well.

The year he turned nine, he discovered that he had a power, and that power was preventing other people from finding him. He wasn't invisible; any animal which also called the forest home could see him. But nothing and no one else could so long as he remained within the forest and didn't go too far into the surrounding fields. He thought the effect was about a four-mile radius from the location he'd first called it home, and he realized that meant it had literally been something he said. The Dursleys had always said he was a freak. He couldn't help but wonder if they had been right.

Nor was this the only "freakish" thing that happened. That same year, he nearly starved when a deer decided to eat his early vegetables and several of his caches of dried food had gone moldy on him. But he figured out that he could make the plants grow faster by singing to them. In this way one of his pumpkin vines produced six ripe fruits in the middle of May, and one of the mulberry trees ripened early. This was how he learned there was a limit to his ability to hide with his power. People and animals couldn't see him, but they could hear him. His singing attracted a park ranger. That was how the rumor of the Ghost Boy got started, and he tried to be quiet when he sang to the plants, but sound carried through the woods. Harry learned to be very silent when he was hunting.

The year he turned eleven, he saw more owls in the woods than he ever thought would live there, but they never stayed. He also caught his first turkey that year, making sure to save all of its wing and tail feathers for writing. He made an ink from a combination of honey, egg whites, water and black walnut hulls. It was a burnt orange color, but it showed up on the paper of his journal well enough, and he had always been able to pick up turkey feathers in the park because the birds lived there in the winter, the big sandstone formations holding onto heat and making it warmer for them. The one he caught was a big bird, too, and its meat lasted him half the winter. He made due with fish and squirrels for the rest of the cold season, but he swore he'd get two turkeys the next year.

Sometimes he thought that without the journal he'd go crazy. He was able to write his thoughts and feelings, working them out on paper. Sometimes that was as little as writing down what he had done that day. Other days he was thinking about the Dursleys, and others about his loneliness. Still others he drew pictures of various things in the forest, like squirrels, owls, leaves, and once a feral chicken! He loved the silence of the woods, but sometimes it got to him, and without the journal, it would have become unbearable.

Harry made use of every part of everything he caught, as well as he was able. From the book he learned how to tan the hide of any mammal using its own brain as the tanning agent. He used plastic rubbish bags from the camp grounds to contain the smell, and always chose a new spot to bury the residue after he was done. He had enough squirrel hides to make himself a heavy coat by the time he turned twelve. He also got a deer that year, though not by his own hand. He knew no one was supposed to be hunting in the park, so he never took more than what he needed and never let any of it go to waste. But when the man came into the park that winter with a gun, Harry took advantage of his reputation as a ghost and scared the poacher out of the woods. That did not happen before he'd taken a shot at a six-point stag. Harry found the dead animal, and he knew that if he wanted to use it he'd have to act quickly. The gunshots would definitely attract the rangers.

He ended up dragging the stag into his own home, and pushing his power out into the forest to clean up all of the blood the beast had lost along the way. If he hadn't, the blood trail would have led the ranger to the stag and he'd not have gotten any use of it. But the rangers found nothing, and Harry was able to harvest the deer's meat, hide and bones. The deer hide went on top of his sleeping bag as a new blanket after he'd finished tanning it. But he had the problem of dealing with that much meat. He had no idea how he was going to store it.

Eventually, he happened upon a dual solution. One of the visitors to the camp grounds had left behind a spiral sketchbook, and Harry used the un-used paper as wrapping for the chunks of meat. He ate the heart and the liver over the first two days, big pieces of meat that he'd never have been able to save anyway. Then he put the packages in a nearby hole and filled the hole and filled it in with snow. At no point during the winter that followed was there ever not enough snow to keep the meat at a safe temperature, so that one animal kept him fed all winter.

The campgrounds had always been a gold mine for him. People were lazy and messy, and they always left stuff behind that he was able to scavenge from, up to and including clothing and shoes. He'd gotten all kinds of fishing lures and equipment that way, as well as a few pots and pans and one good cast iron skillet. He didn't have to use bar soap on his hair after only two weeks in the park, as people threw away or left behind perfectly good bottles of shampoo. When the frames of his glasses no longer fit his face, he took the ear pieces off and ran a bit of braided fishing line through the screw holes and around his head so that he could still see. When his first knife dulled beyond being useable, he was able to pick up another one. He had dishes and flatware, as well, and was even able to care for his teeth. But he never picked up so much stuff that he risked becoming the same way as they were. Between his small living space and the fact that he wanted no one to find him and put him in an orphanage, he couldn't afford to risk it.

Being alone had already been a reality for Harry when he was abandoned by the Dursleys, at least to the point of not having any friends. It wasn't that he was a natural loner, really. It was that Dudley wouldn't let him have any, scaring them off if they tried to befriend him. But he'd never been quite so alone. There had been teachers and other adults to show him what to do, to help him if anything was too wrong. The worst thing about living in the forest was that he knew he could have that again if he let them catch him. When he was almost thirteen, just two weeks shy, he almost let himself be caught. There was a six-year-old girl who had gotten separated from her family, so the park was swarming with people. Harry didn't want to leave the little girl alone, so he started singing to her to try and comfort her. His songs never had words, being simple tunes full of pure emotion. But because he didn't want her to be alone, she could see him. She became an exception to the terms, so to speak. That scared him, not because of her, but because that meant he could show himself to people. _If_ he wanted to.

For a moment, he wanted to. He saw her family arrive, drawn by the song, saw how they held her, crying, so afraid that they had lost her. In that moment he wanted to go with them, and in that moment they saw him. But only for a moment. When he realized what was going on, he concentrated on the need to be away from people, the need to not be put in an orphanage that continued to drive him, and to their sight he simply faded away. He cried himself to sleep that night. But in the morning, his resolve was stronger than ever to continue living as he had lived. He didn't want to be around people if they could make him feel like that.

Instead, he got himself a pet.

Three nights after the little girl had been found, Harry found a hoot owl which had a broken wing. Knowing the owl would become breakfast for something hungry, like a feral cat, if he didn't save it, he made the decision to help the lovely bird. Her big, soulful eyes might have had something to do with it, as well. He felt along the bone of her wing, and it was a simple break, not a pulled joint, which would be harder to properly heal. He took her home with him and sung her to sleep, literally, his power flowing through his voice to do what he wanted it to do. Then while the song held her under, he carefully wrapped the wing using the gauze from his first aid kit, using a straight, thick twig as a brace for the makeshift splint.

When she woke, she wasn't happy to be inside, but moving her wing was painful, so she didn't protest too vehemently. She looked at Harry and actually rolled her eyes at him. He burst out laughing, something he hadn't done in years, and told her, "I did my best, princess." She cackled at him, then hopped up next to him, intent on using him as a furnace, as if to say that yes, she was a princess, and she deserved the best. So he called her Princess from there on.

And it was from there on, because even after her wing healed, Princess seemed to have adopted him as her own chick. If people could have seen them, they'd have known just by looking that the pair belonged in the forest as no one else did. They developed a relationship that provided for Harry that one thing he was missing, companionship, and thereby saved his sanity. Princess hunted for herself, of course, once she was able to fly again, but more often she flew to him expecting a share of whatever game he had hunted or a bit of his dinner.

Harry's fourteenth birthday passed like every other, unremarked. He did take the moment to write in his journal, but that was hardly an unusual occurrence. Princess nipped at the turkey quill he was using, and he ran it across her cere. She sneezed, and he chuckled. Life seemed to be perfect. His plants (he didn't call them a garden since they were just scattered through the forest) were doing well, Sugar Creek was at the level it should be and full of fish, and the rangers were more convinced than ever that there was a wandering spirit that had somehow become trapped in the park. He'd even taken to pulling pranks every once in a while, making leaves on the forest floor swirl around some tourist, or causing all the apples on the wild crab apple tree to come ripe three months early and overnight when he knew someone would be walking that way and would see it.

So of course, it couldn't last.

* * *

The morning of October 31st, Harry was enjoying one of his favorite breakfast meals, mashed pumpkin sweetened with honey from one of the nearby bee hives. He was wearing the new jacket he had made from his deer hide blanket, having replaced it with campground castoffs, and he was enjoying his breakfast prior to going out to harvest as much of his produce as was ripe enough to do so. He wanted to raid a couple of the farms, as well, wanting corn meal to make into hot cereal over the winter. He had a big flat rock paired with a nice river stone that he did his grinding with, and a cloth sack made from a tee shirt that he kept the meal in.

Suddenly a feeling of foreboding came upon him. Princess sensed something, as well, and she hopped onto his shoulder, looking around for whatever danger had spiked her senses. Neither could have predicted something snagging onto Harry's power, onto its very source, and forcing it to obey. But a powerful magical object had been fooled into forming a binding magical contract with an unwilling participant, and now neither it nor Harry had any choice in the matter. The Goblet of Fire reached into Harry Potter's magical core and forcibly Apparated him back to the land of his birth.

The trip was not an easy one. Apparation as done by a trained adult wizard takes precision of thought and a good visual picture of where one wanted to end up. The Goblet provided the imagery, but it still took a lot of power to move that far, and though he had enough, it was highly taxing. His unwillingness made it worse, because he naturally fought against the intrusion into his magical core. He instinctively held on to Princess so that she wasn't harmed, but that added mass to the equation, as well. He was standing when he landed in the Great Hall of Hogwarts Castle, but he didn't remain so for long.

* * *

When he woke, he was on a bed. He hadn't ever felt a bed this soft, not in all his life, so it was very uncomfortable to him. He felt like he was going to sink into it. His glasses were not on his face, so he couldn't see. And he felt horrible, like he had when he was ten and got sick from eating over-ripened blackberries, the ones that smelled like cough medicine.

Harry sat up, and regretted the action as his head swam, but he stayed still for a moment and the feeling passed. A voice came out of the gloom at him. "Welcome back, Mr. Potter." He started. It was a female voice, and kindly, but no one had said his name in over six years. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you."

First things first, then. "Glasses."

"Of course. They're on the table there beside you. Left side. There you go. I repaired them as best I could, but I think you might need a new prescription."

He got the glasses and put them on, the feel of ear pieces strange after so long with the fishing line holding them on, but it was fine. Even the scratches had been repaired, so he could see much better than he had for quite some time. The woman who was speaking to him was older, and she was dressed in white, a little white hat on her head. A nurse, then.

"You have questions, I'm guessing."

"A few," he acknowledged. "First, what happened? Second, where am I? Third, how do you know my name." Looking down at himself and seeing some kind of thin striped pajamas, he said, "And fourth, where are my clothes?" He didn't want to think about how he'd come to be in the pajamas and not his clothes.

"I'll go in reverse order, shall I? Your clothes are being washed. Your shoes are just there beside the bed on the floor. I know your name because I knew your parents names. You are in the infirmary of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. And as for _why_ you are here, well, I don't think I'm the right person to tell you that. I only know that you're in the infirmary because of magical exhaustion."

"Magic?"

"That's right, Mr. Potter," said the new person who had walked into the infirmary while the nurse was talking. "I am Albus Dumbledore, the Headmaster of this school. This is our school nurse, Madame Pomfrey. I do not know if you are aware, but you were born with the ability to control the force we call magic. You have a core of magical energy that you can use to power spells of many and wildly varying types. You are here because someone used your name in a ritual. They got hold of an assignment you had turned in when you were a young child to a teacher in Surrey, one which had your name on it, and they placed your name into this artifact, which is called the Goblet of Fire. The Goblet can tell that you put your name on the paper without any hint of duress, but it cannot tell anything else, and since the name of the school on the paper was different from all of the others, your name was the only one which it could call from that school.

"You see, we're hosting a tournament, a competition between the three premier schools for magic in all Europe, and each school will have one champion to represent them. Any student who is chosen to become a Triwizard Champion is magically bound to compete. I am afraid, my young friend, that due to the magic of the cup, you literally have no choice but to compete."

There was only one thing he could say to that. "Well, shit."

* * *

 _Yes, Harry cussed. He won't make a habit of it, but, really, what else is there to say?_

 _Thank you all for your reviews. There are quite a few wrinkles I have to iron out here, not the least of which is how each task will go, how MoldyShorts will react to this little development, and how Harry will react to suddenly being thrust into society again, a society that has a bad love/hate view of him and is rabid for news, even if its fakenews._

 _Reviews will help me keep writing!_


	3. School

**Chapter 3: School**

 _Due to the eavesdropping he's done over the years, Harry's accent is an atrocious mix of Indiana and Surrey. I'll let your imagination and my spelling take it from there. That's also how Harry's figured out what a lot of the words in his book mean, though there are also a lot of pictures. Also, Harry's lingual patterns are stunted by his lack of education, but his thoughts are as sophisticated as they should be._

"Albus, this is reprehensible! How do you justify roping this boy into competing in a tournament for wizards who are not only older but better trained than he, when he doesn't even have a wand!?" Minerva McGonagall was absolutely livid! How dare he! "And don't try to tell me you didn't put his name in the cup! You've been so desperate to find him for so many years, I have no trouble believing that you have all of his primary school work from before he was lost."

"How else were we going to find him, Minerva? After I foolishly trusted those people to care for him, he could no longer call their home his own, and everything else failed! He's been unconsciously exuding some kind of shield that has prevented all and sundry from even seeing him, let alone finding him!"

"Better that he had remained lost!" she shouted in his face.

"S'cuse me, but c'n I ask a question?" came the timid, gravely voice of Harry Potter.

The adults turned to see him poking his head through the door of Madame Pomfrey's office. Neither had heard his approach, nor felt him penetrate the silencing ward that had been placed upon the door.

Minerva shook her head. "Of course." She turned back to the Headmaster. "Leave. You've done enough."

"Minerva-"

"No! There is too much at stake! I will tell him everything he needs to know." The old man huffed, then turned and left the office with as much dignity as he could. The door swung behind him, and Harry closed it as he came fully into the room. "Now, I imagine you have all kinds of questions, Mr. Potter."

"Um, yeah." He cleared his throat. "The Dursleys didn' want me, 'cuz I'm so different. But the nurse said its magic. Mr. Dumbledore said I'm magic, and so's everyone in the school." He shrugged. "I guess I been hiding with magic, and I c'n sing things sometimes that happen, but I don' know how to do what he wuz talking about. I c'n read some, and write, but I ain't done any school work since, well-"

"Since you were abandoned. I understand." She gestured to a chair and Harry sat down in it. "Unfortunately, due to what he did, we none of us have a choice. It is normally against the rules of the Tournament to help the contestants in any way, but he shot the rules to pieces anyway, and I'm getting permission from the people running the tournament to help you. Your illiteracy, while not complete, is going to be a true handicap, and at the very least someone will need to help you read and research. We'll be able to help you get caught up in time, but with this farce in play we'll have to concentrate on helping you to survive." She smiled at him. "Not that you haven't done a marvelous job of surviving, but you've yet to face a magical threat since you were a wee bairn. Now, tell me about this singing."

Harry nodded. "Sometimes when I sing, stuff happens. Stuff disappears, or floats, or anythin' I really wanna do. Sometimes, I whistle, but it don' do the same. I helped my friend's wing to heal." Suddenly Harry frowned. "I guess Princess'll be on her own again. But all my stuff's still there!"

"We can send someone after it. Where were you hiding, anyway?"

Harry shrugged, his face very unhappy. "I don' know exactly. The people who'd camp there called it Turkey Run, an' I know it wuz America. I think it wuz Indiana, cuz the book I learned all my stuff from wuz called Survival Indiana. An' there wuz park rangers there, too, 'n' they kept folks from messin' with the woods too much 'r shootin' what they shouldn't. Folks could camp in the campgrounds, 'n' I'd take stuff from the trash all the time, stuff they'd leave behind." He smiled a little. "The rangers think I'm a ghost."

"Well, I think that's enough information for one of my associates to find your things. He has a very good nose. I'll give him a call later today. Now, what sorts of things have happened other than objects disappearing or levitating?"

"When Princess's wing wuz busted, I made 'er sleep. An' when tha' little girl wuz lost, I sat with 'er and sang. She calmed down, but I'm not sure if that's cuz o' the magic'r cuz she wun't alone no more. Mostly it jus' helps me hide an' helps my veggies grow faster."

"It may be difficult to change the way you use your magic now, as you've done so for many years this way. But perhaps we can change what you can do with it. Over the next few days, I'm going to show you several spells, and we'll see if we can get your singing magic to emulate the effects. We'll try you on a wand as well, of course, and see if we can't help you learn how to use it. But for the purposes of the Tournament, I think this way will be the best. For example," she drew her wand and aimed it at a picture on the wall. Slowly she intoned "Accio photograph." The picture came off the wall, sailing into her outstretched left hand. "Try that."

Harry nodded, then began singing, a quiet, ethereal sound that surprised her with its beauty. There were no words, only thick, full notes pushed through an open vowel sound that didn't correspond to any particular letter, though it was closer to an "a" than an "o". The picture left her hand and glided smoothly into his, though the photo moved to his rhythm rather than shooting across in a straight line.

"Very good," she said as he quieted. "Has your magic ever acted offensively?"

"What's that mean?"

"Have you ever used magic as a weapon?"

"Like for huntin'? No. I hunt and fish just fine. No need to magic anythin' to hurt it." He frowned. "'N fact, that sounds _bad_ , usin' it that way. I did scare a poacher t' runnin' one year. That's how I come by the deer to make my jacket."

"We did wonder. Did you have a heavier coat, as well?"

"Yeah, from squirrel and rabbit furs. But I'd out grow'd it. I's gettin' ready to sew a new one. I take 'em with a sling, like that David kid from the Bible I heard of, 'n' fish with the pole I bought first thing when I's lost. I bought seeds, like fer pumpkins 'n' cabbages, so I don' run out o' that kind o' food, neither. Always save yer seeds."

Minerva sat back in her chair, thinking. "All right. I think we have a foundation we can build on, and I imagine you are quite hungry." She sat up straight, then called, "Tuffy!"

A tiny person with a big head and a very small body popped into the room out of thin air. She had a little bow on her head, big pointed ears that flopped over like a rabbit's and big blue eyes the size of apples, and she wore a black shift with some kind of coat of arms embroidered into it. In a high, squeaky voice, she said, "Mistress called Tuffy?"

"There is an empty guest suite on the second floor near the Great Hall. Please have it smartened up, fresh linens and all that. And have the kitchens bring dinner for a fourth year student here to the infirmary."

"Yes, Mistress." With a bob, she popped back out.

"What was that?" asked Harry.

"Tuffy is a House Elf. There are quite a number of them working for Hogwarts. It is they who keep it clean and keep us fed. Now, let's go back out into the main room, shall we? You mentioned someone you called Princess. Was this a pet?"

"I guess you c'd say that. She's a hoot owl, an' I found 'er one day with a broke wing. I sang 'er to sleep, then splinted 'er wing, 'n' when she woke up, she aimed to call me 'er own! 'Er attitude wuz all prissy, so I called 'er Princess."

"Then she is probably the owl who has been attempting all day to get into the infirmary. You were holding on to her when the Triwizard Cup's magic dumped you in the Great Hall. She was shooed out of the Hall while we were trying to see to your health, but there's no reason we can't let her in now."

Harry's eyes lit up at the thought of having his friend with him again, a little familiarity in this new and daunting place. Minerva aimed her wand at one of the upper windows, and a streak of brown and white feathers came through it at high speed.

Princess landed on the bed that Harry had woke up in, and he quickly hopped back into it to join her. Very quietly, he said, "Glad yer good, Princess. Thought I'd lost ya fer a mo."

Soon Tuffy brought Harry's dinner in, and he promptly began to feed himself and his owl. Minerva took the opportunity to speak with Madame Pomfrey about her patient. The nurse said, "Well, he's a bit under fed, but his weight and nutrition is within acceptable limits. He's very well-muscled, just with a bit less fat than I'd like to see on a boy his age. His height is average, and other than the one scar he's picked up a few others over the years from his rough living. All in all, I'd say he managed to take very good care of himself. But he desperately needs a new prescription for his glasses, and before the first bloody Task of this Merlin-damned Tournament."

"Well, he can't have seen anyone about them since he was seven years old at the very least. Can you adjust it, or do we need to bring in a specialist?"

"I'd bring in someone. I don't trust myself to do it. One very strange thing, though. I expected his magical channels to either be underdeveloped or to go through his hands, but I found them all wrapped around his neck!"

"He sings, Poppy. He uses his voice, not his hand. He may never be able to use a wand."

Madame Pomfrey stared at her. "That's-"

"I know. I've never heard of that adaptation outside of a Banshee, and of course he's not one, nor are there any in his family line."

They watched him feeding his owl for a few moments. Then Madame Pomfrey said, "Albus wanted me to check him for the Parselmouth Gift."

"Because of Riddle?"

"I assume so."

"I'll ask him, and I'll explain. And I'll use the bastard's _nom de guerre_ , too. He hasn't Tabooed it yet."

"He was living in a park of some kind?"

"I think it was a National Forest. He mentioned its name and State. I think I'll give Remus Lupin a call, see if he can go in and get the boy's belongings. I'm sure he'll appreciate having familiar things around him while this trial is dealt with." Minerva shook her head. "It's a good thing that Harry is obligated by the Tournament to remain on the grounds or we'd have to worry about one of the pureblood families kidnapping him. As it is, we're going to need to put him with a an official foster family, and quickly, or one of them will get him legally by petitioning for custody."

Unbeknownst to the two ladies, Harry heard every word they said, though he didn't understand them all. The prescription had to be about his glasses, and privately he agreed. But he had no idea what they were talking about when they spoke of a Parselmouth or a Banshee or a Riddle. Also, they were apparently worried about the wrong sort of family taking him in. Idly he wondered where they were when he was placed with the Dursley family, but that was in the past. He also wondered who this Remus Lupin was, and he was quite grateful for their thought to have his belongings brought from the forest.

He took hope in the fact that no one mentioned an orphanage, and he wondered if the Dursleys had just made them up, but then he decided it didn't matter. He would never regret having lived in Turkey Run, and he'd pay them back one day if he could.

Of course, though he was paying very close attention to the conversation of the two ladies, he was also paying attention to his food. Never had he tasted such rich food! He honestly wasn't sure he liked it, having been much more used to far simpler tastes. The only spices he'd had were onion and salt. He fed bits of ham to Princess, who regarded them with all the pickiness of a starveling.

What kind of family would they choose for him? Would they have other children? Would they like him, or would they treat him as the Dursleys had? And would they understand that he had spent nearly half his life living on his own or would they treat him like a child? He certainly had no way of knowing, and it was worries like this that had kept him from leaving the woods in the first place.

But now he'd been found. He would have to deal with what came next, just as he had done when he was first abandoned.

Minerva returned to Harry's bedside. "Mr. Potter, I feel you are owed a warning. Because of what happened when you were a mere babe, you are quite famous in our world. The Headmaster, Albums Dumbledore, placed you with your last living relatives, expecting them to love you because they were family, because he did not want you to grow up around all of that. But he did not thoroughly investigate them. And you paid the price. Now the reason you are famous, the event which caused all of this to be necessary in the first place, was your survival of your parents' murder. On Halloween night, thirteen years ago yesterday, a man called Voldemort broke past the powerful magical protections on your house, intent on killing you because someone had prophesied that you would be born with the power to defeat him."

She sighed. "Of course, they then decided to abandon you in America. This broke the protections Albus had put on their home for your sake, and Voldemort's followers found them and killed them, trying to find out where you were. Their son Dudley now lives with his Aunt on his father's side. The magic of the cup will prevent you from leaving the grounds of Hogwarts for now, which means you'll be safe from any attempt to kidnap you, but there is every reason to think that one of them might try to legally adopt you in an effort to bring you to their master. He wasn't killed, you see, by the spell he tried to murder you with. He had used a series of objects to hold pieces of his soul, anchoring him to this world, and eventually one of his servants was able to use them to bring him back to full power, and many of his servants are hidden in normal society, having escaped justice by the simple expedient of bribery, and several have other children your age, so they would look good on paper. We want to put you, instead, with a family of good standing who would be trustworthy to care for you properly."

His mind milled around what she'd told him. "What's bribery?"

"Giving money to a person in authority, paying them to cheat, using that authority for the benefit of the person paying them."

"Ah." Harry thought about that for a few minutes. Minerva pulled up a chair to wait while he thought. Then he said, "Will I be meetin' these folks?"

"Yes, of course. And there are several candidates I believe would match you well. The Weasley family has six children of varying ages, though only three still in school and living at home. Then there are the Finnegans, the Thomases, the Abbots, the Diggorys, the Spinnets, the Boots family, and several others. The ones you'd have to worry about would be the Malfoys especially, the Crabbes, Goyles, and Notts."

"All right. Well, what'll I be doin' in this contest?"

"The Champions of the Tournament are pitted against each other in three Tasks designed to test their magical ability and skill, their bravery and their intelligence. The first Task has traditionally been a dangerous magical animal, the second an environmental challenge, and the third some form of race. Each Task is scored, and the scores from the first two tasks will indicate the beginning placement of the Champions in that race."

Harry nodded and would have said something else, but suddenly the door to the infirmary opened, admitting a portly gentleman in a lime green bowler hat wearing a black robe and a matching lime green tie. "Harry Potter! Wonderful to see you alive and well!"

Albus came in behind him. "Cornelius, I must protest. Mr. Potter was forced by the cup to Apparate from America to here, and though he is unharmed, I doubt he's yet up for company."

Minerva glared at the both of them.

"Nonsense," said the man in the hat. "He's sitting up, eating, feeding his owl!"

"Gentlemen, please be quiet!" said Madame Pomfrey. "This is a hospital, not a Quidditch game, and Mr. Potter is not my only patient."

"I can be quiet, but I must meet the boy for myself!"

Reluctantly, the two women stood aside, and the man approached Harry. "Hello, young man. My name is Cornelius Fudge. I am the Minister of Magic for Great Britain. You've certainly stirred up the country with your reappearance! You _must_ tell me how you've remained hidden all these years!"

Behind Minister Fudge and out of his field of vision, Minerva shook her head, and Harry smoothly lied. "I really don' know, mister. I just know I been lost since m' fam'ly dumped me 't Wal-Mart."

"That must have been quite frightening."

Harry shrugged. "I done okay." Then, to his embarrassment, a massive yawn nearly split his face in half.

That was Madame Pomfrey's queue. "Really, I must insist on everyone leaving. I'm sure Mr. Potter will be feeling better tomorrow, but he needs his rest."

Reluctantly, both the Minister and the Headmaster left the infirmary. Minerva said, "I'll be going as well. I'll contact my friend to see about your belongings. He'll come by tomorrow and work with you on putting together a map so that he can reach your place in the park. He's quite good with maps, so I doubt he'll have any problems."

Harry lay down again in the impossibly soft bed, pulling the blanket over him. It was a bit chilly, though at least there wasn't any wind. Uneasiness still bounded through his mind, worry for what was going to be happening in the future. But the support of the nurse and the teacher encouraged him. At least if he had to be here and face this he wouldn't be alone to do it.

 _Hope you all enjoyed that. Sorry it took so long. Next chapter will have a lot more introductions. And thanks to everyone who reviewed!_


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